The Coolest Boys Ever!

...you can contact me through my blog, my personal email, via facebook, or at mobilemarypoppins@gmail.com. Thank you all for your support so far!!

WEEK 5

Dear Lincoln, Lilliana, Leni, Juliana, Evyn, Jack, Faye, Chloe, Emerson, Lake, Rita, Violet, and Ella,

This week I went to stay with the coolest three brothers I have ever met. Their mom is from New Zealand and their dad is from America and they live in Singapore. Their grandma, who they call GG, has a big house in the middle of the countryside near Hawkes Bay on the East Coast of the North Island, and they have a house at the bottom of GG’s drive.

They were here on vacation from Singapore and they were camping on a lake called Lake Rotoiti. They invited me to come camping with them for a couple of days.

On Saturday morning I left Aidan and Luke’s house and traveled by bus to a town called Rotorua, which is famous for its geysers. These are hot springs that spurt steaming water and gas up from under the earth’s surface. This creates mud pools and springs, and some of them are very smelly because they contain lots of sulphur. I could smell the sulphur as soon as I arrived; it smells like rotten eggs!

When I got off the bus I met Fynn (who is 6¾), Archie (who is 5¾) and Charlie (who is 3½) and their mom and dad and GG. Then we drove back to the bach where they were camping. A bach is what the Kiwis call a very basic little holiday home.

It is usually made of wood and sometimes doesn’t even have electricity, although this one did. The boys and their parents were sleeping outside in a tent and GG and I were sleeping inside the bach. They needed a huge tent for all of them. It looked like a space ship and had four separate rooms!

The boys’ dad has got loads of tattoos all over his body and told me stories about every single one. That took up most of the first evening. Some of them are really cool, like the stars he has on his leg, one for each of his boys, but some are a little scary, like the demon mask on his back, which looks like the kind of thing Scooby Doo would run a mile from!

I loved seeing the beautiful lake where they were staying, and the black swans that live on the lake; I had only ever seen white ones before.

I slept really well in the bach (mostly because sweet Archie had given me his pillow to sleep on) and the next day we got picked up in a friend’s speedboat and taken to some hot springs on the other side of the lake.

Riding in the boat was so much fun. I had to wear a lifejacket because, like the law about wearing seatbelts in cars, there is a law in New Zealand that says you have to wear a lifejacket on a boat.

We had a great time at the hot pools, and the boys did huge jumps off the jetty into the lake.

On the way back I had fun riding on the “biscuit” which is an inflatable ring that they pull behind the speedboat.

I went so fast, I flew out of the water at one point! Just near the bach we saw some kids climbing onto the rocks and jumping into the water. Some of them were so brave they were doing somersaults, forwards ones and backwards ones. Kiwis are very brave, even the kids!

That night we all went out for dinner at a local restaurant where there was an outside toilet, a tree in a boat, and a hutch containing two guinea pigs.

The boys met a couple of guys (one from New Zealand and one from Brazil) who were enjoying a quiet beer until three curious little brothers got chatting to them!

After dinner we got taken to a redwood park to see some huge trout that were swimming in the river.

The walk through the huge redwood trees as the sun set was really magical. On the way back to the car I saw the funniest thing.

I thought I saw a black and white bird on a fence, but when I got closer I realized it was a jandal (what the Kiwis call flip flops.) The boys told me that Kiwis like to hang their shoes on fences and drive off and leave them. They do some pretty weird stuff, the Kiwis!

The next day we got up early to play in the local park. The boys loved showing me how good they are at rugby.

Then we had to head back to the boys’ house in the countryside. It was quite a long drive but the boys kept me entertained by singing Iron Maiden songs. They are little rockers! When we got to their country house, they couldn’t wait to show me all the cool things they have.

They have a wooden clubhouse, and they made me the first girl member of their club (I had to sign a contract to become a member!)

They also introduced me to their donkeys and sheep.

The donkeys are called Rosie, Hugo and Amy and, get this... the sheep is called Donkey! I couldn’t stop laughing when they told me that. A sheep called Donkey! That’s about the funniest thing I’ve ever heard! But that’s the kind of kids these boys are; super funny.

That day, they were wearing T-shirts that tell you a lot about them. Fynn is quite boisterous (his T-shirt says, “Robots attack!”), Archie is a great peacemaker (his T-shirt says “DON’T START WARS”), and Charlie is full of surprises (his T-shirt says, “The Future Is Unwritten.”)

Another funny thing about the boys is that they called me Mary Poppins the whole time. Although they know my name is Susie their mom told them I am like the current Mary Poppins (like the one from the movie) so that’s what they decided to call me. On my last night, when Archie was being put to bed, I overheard him say to his mom, “I want Mary Poppins to stay with us for 200 years!”

The boys had a great time showing me all around GG’s house and beautiful yard. She has an orchard with fig trees and feijoa trees.

The feijoa is a soft fruit that I had never heard of before I came to New Zealand.

We also discovered a caterpillar in GG’s vegetable garden. It was the caterpillar for the Monarch Striped Butterfly, which has beautiful black and yellow stripes, and it looked very hungry! I got a great photo of it.

I stayed one more night with the boys before I had to leave to fly down to the South Island to stay with my next two families. I will miss those boys so much; they became good friends of mine in a very short time. I felt like I’d always known them. Luckily I will be seeing them again in a couple of months when I go and stay with them in Singapore, and I’ll tell you lots more stories about them then, but camping with them in New Zealand was a fantastic way to start 2011!

Next week I’ll tell you all about life in the South Island, including how two children live on a farm that is miles and miles from anywhere. It’s so far away in the middle of the mountains that it takes them an hour to drive to the nearest shop!

Lots and lots of love to you all, and big hugs and kisses,

Susie

xxxx